A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library. ~Shelby Foote

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Food for Thought

Orson Scott Card has a thought-provoking, and rather disturbing, column up about weapons of mass destruction over at ornery.org. It is one of his better efforts of late because he keeps, for the most part, his judgements to himself and leaves politics out of it. The really scary bit, and I'm afraid he's quite correct on this point, is this:

The real point of breakdown is in North Korea, where there is already a madman running the government. There is no government on earth, with the possible exception of Zimbabwe, that is governed as badly by leaders as insane as those ruling North Korea.

And North Korea doesn't need a cause. They have only to decide that it's time to get even with Japan for its crimes against the Korean people and lob a missile onto Tokyo.

Card's point is that most foreign leaders are too rational, and have a strong enough self-preservation quotient, to ever use their nuclear weapons unprovoked. But Kim Jong-Il is nuts. He is not consistently rational, and his perspective on the world is not based on a solid bedrock of reality. What a pleasant thought, to know that he's in charge of a country that likely has nuclear capability.

For a less analytical, more screed-based essay from Card, check out his previous entry about the London bombings, as well. I don't agree with all of it, but I think the general gist is right. Iraq may or may not have been the right move in the War on Terror following Afghanistan, but regardless, it was only one move. One theater in the War if you will. As was Afghanistan. Syria and Iran, and to a lesser degree Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are potential future theaters. Hopefully, not all of those theaters will need to be engaged, but ultimately, we can not take the pressure off of the terrorists until they give up. Money quote:

In a world that includes such men as these, there is no peace until their power to murder is taken from them. Those who think we can end this war by any action other than winning it have not studied history well enough.

But that's all right. Osama and his ilk will send them all through a bloody school until the lesson is learned.